Term of Trial

Graham Weir is a middle-aged schoolmaster. Shirley Taylor is his adoring 16-year-old pupil. She offers herself, he gently rejects her and she retaliates with a charge of indecent assault. Acting legend Laurence Olivier and film-debuting Sarah Miles portray teacher and student in Term of Trial, Peter (Becket) Glenville's provocative film notable in its time for its frank sexual theme and notable in ours for Olivier's authoritative portrait of an unauthoritative man, one too good -- or too fearful -- to misuse another human being. Simone Signoret, like Olivier an Academy Award winner, plays Weir's restless wife, whose disdain for her husband leads to a stunning denouement. Three lives. One fateful lie.

• drama